These Uplift novels are getting better. This time I cared a lot more about the characters, and the writing seemed much smoother and less annoying. The author managed to go more than two or three pages sometimes between changes of viewpoint character, and the action was more streamlined and less choppy.

I loved the character of the ambassador's daughter Athaclena, and how she ended up leading the resistance forces. I liked her species, I liked their intuitive psi sense, the artistic glyphs they broadcast, and their great sense of humor. It seems pretty farfetched to me that any other species in the galaxy would look so very much like humans (other than chimps and gorillas who share our genetic heritage, of course), but he does throw in a few species who are very different like the plantlike ones with nothing like a face. I forget the species name at the moment.

The birdlike enemies in this book, the Gubru, had an interesting society and mating system, but overall they were pretty annoying. They did a lot of screeching and hopping. I like the neo-chimps quite a bit, though. They were depicted as full characters with lots of complexity.

I have great hopes that the series will continue to get better as it goes on. I'm starting Brightness Reef, the next one, today. The books are nothing like as good as, say, an Ursula K. Le Guin book, but they are fun reads and are full of interesting ideas.